12 September 2016 1:58 PM

Why I'm Sort of Slightly Sympathetic Towards Emily Thornberry

I have no reason to love Emily Thornberry, a Labour blowhard whose explosion of phoney outrage I once had to wipe away and then denounce during a BBC Question Time appearance in Stockton-on-Tees, when we were on the same panel.

Perhaps that’s why I stood by when Ms Thornberry, whose interesting background is worth studying, was oddly pilloried for a not especially outrageous tweet during the Rochester and Strood by-election.

I could never see that this really deserved the level of criticism it received. It appeared to reflect an attitude which I would have thought was shared by most of the people who then attacked her. The fury of the left-wing elite towards Corbynistas is a very odd thing. I’m fascinated by the ‘anti-Semitism’ charge against the Corbynites, which certainly has some justification, given their sympathy for anti-Israel factions. But those who make this charge have in many cases for years swallowed and repeated anti-Israel propaganda which I have always regarded as being selective criticism founded in an unacknowledged Judophobia. Put it like this. I've never been able to find another explanation for their special concentration on the undoubted faults of Israel, and their lack of interest in the parallel faults of other countries.

But now she’s been caught out not knowing the name of the French Foreign Minister, I feel I must speak up for her. I do not know the name of the French Foreign Minister, even though I read it this morning. It just hasn’t stuck. I’d have to look it up, or write it on my sleeve if I were, by some sort of nightmare chance, Shadow Foreign Secretary. And no wonder. I will be unlikely to need it. Once, I would have done (especially when it was the gloriously named Maurice Couve de Murville, whose comings and goings were incessant in the 1960s) . And for ages I could also confidently have identified the German Foreign Minister, Hans-Dieter Genscher.

Long ago now, I tried to maintain a pretty close interest in the politics of the main continental countries, closely studying the relevant pages of the FT and The Times. I thought this was the sort of thing an informed person ought to know. When I visited France I could usually pick up the thread of French politics by reading Le Monde, but it’s all gone now. The end of the Cold War, and the death of truly independent countries caused by the EU, has made foreign governments as interesting as district councils in faraway bits of the West Midlands.

There was a time in the mid-60s when I could confidently have identified every British MP by his or her constituency, especially enjoying the fact that Frank Hooley was MP for Heeley, then a division of Sheffield. Now I stare blankly at pictures of the Cabinet, wondering who they are and not feeling much more informed when people give me their names. (‘Who? Who?’ I ask, echoing the Duke of Wellington’s querulous, bellowed response to Lord Derby’s 1852 Cabinet of unknowns). For years I struggled to remember that George Osborne was the name of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Something in my mind wanted to reject this information. It still does.

So Ms Thornberry seems to me to have a point when she complains that she’s being singled out when she’s asked to name the French Foreign Minister on live TV. Yes, I know she is actually planning to meet the nameless Frenchman. But I’m sure she’d have got it right in time for the meeting. And, despite considering myself well-informed, I can easily imagine being caught out on such a thing. Also, like her in her Shadow Defence Secretary period , I didn’t know what a Defcon was, though I could identify a CEP, know roughly what Tritium is (and where you might just encounter it) , can tell a SLCM from an SLBM, know the difference between a warship and a battleship and can distinguish an air-superiority fighter from a strike aircraft and a tank from a self-propelled gun.

And I have to ask, did her interrogator know who the French Foreign Minister was, much before he asked the question? And how would he do on a quickfire quiz on leading continental politicians or, come to that, the names of Barack Obama’s Cabinet? More important, what do most political journalists really know about history, foreign affairs or anything much? All they need to know is the line of the day, who’s in and who’s out - and they’re safe.

This sort of failing isn’t quite the same as not knowing the price of a loaf or a pint of milk or a stamp. Such things (which politicians now rehearse frenziedly at election times) are tests of whether you have entirely lost touch with the world of normal people. I’m glad they feel they ought to know. Though they don’t mean much if you don’t also know what the average household’s take-home pay and average debts are, what it costs to rent a house or flat in the South-East, or the outrageous price of a two-mile bus ride.

John.."" It is the Palestinians overwhelmingly responsible for the current stall in the peace process, just as it is the Palestinians overwhelmingly the ones committing terror and atrocities."

Really? How many non-Palestinians have died, been crippled, been made homeless, jobless, stateless and interred into concentration camps by acts of aggression?
How many Palestinian warplanes are there raining HE and phosphorus bombs on housing estates schools and hospitals and unprotected civilians?
And what would you do if a foreign force arrived and commandeered your house, your town, your country and then exiled you as stateless?
We fought two world wars and killed countless numbers of civilians to prevent this sort of takeover and we are proud of it. If the Palestinians had had a powerful military and a nuclear deterrent this would never have happened.
The Palestinians are no such great threat to anyone compared and considering what has and still is happening to them and yet we sit back and watch their homes, livelihoods, infrastructure and lives being disproportionately destroyed as they try to resist the commandeering of more and more of their land.
Not much justice in all that.

I usually say to non-Japanese people that Japan is a good country to visit and stay a shorter period of time (one week to 2-3 years maybe), but it is rather a closed country if one wants to live there permanently. If you want to do so, then Japanese people might demand you a lot - to learn the language and ’good’ manners properly. It is not immigrant-friendly country, if one is not ready to work hard and not having a habit of learning and respecting others.

Many Japanese are not so kind to those who are irresponsible or do not want to work hard - it does not matter if you are a foreigner or a Japanese. They will tell you that you have to take the consequences of what you have done or not done.

Moreover, getting old or sick is not easy if you haven’t saved somewhat enough money. There are a lot of problems in Japanese society but it seems to me that there is more freedom to choose - I know this is paradoxical - than the welfare states like Sweden (or the UK?) in a way.

In Sweden, for instance, almost all women are working ( yes, having five weeks holidays a year), or searching job in order to be able to live as others do. There are not so many alternatives. People are counting on that the state will take care of you in the end. And of course you do not want to miss all sorts of help, since you have been paying so much tax in many ways. But I digress.

I am not sure what you are talking about. It is the Palestinians overwhelmingly responsible for the current stall in the peace process, just as it is the Palestinians overwhelmingly the ones committing terror and atrocities.

I usually say to non-Japanese people that Japan is a good country to visit and stay a shorter period of time (one week to 2-3 years maybe), but it is rather a closed country if one wants to live there permanently. If you want to do so, then Japanese people might demand you a lot - to learn the language and ’good’ manners properly. It is not immigrant-friendly country, if one is not ready to work hard and not having a habit of learning and respecting others.

Still, I am almost always surprised to find out that 99% of the population is Japanese in the statistics. I cannot pretend that I know why, but one of the reasons might be that it is hard to become Japanese, I mean not only legally but also socially.

Many Japanese are not so kind to those who are irresponsible or do not want to work hard. They will tell you that you have to take consequences of what you have done or not done.

Moreover, getting old or sick is not easy if you haven’t saved somewhat enough money. There are a lot of problems in Japanese society but it seems to me that there is more freedom to choose - I know this is paradoxical - than the welfare states like Sweden or the UK in a way.

In Sweden, for instance, almost all women are working ( yes, having five weeks holidays a year), or searching job in order to be able to live as others do. There are not so many alternatives. People are counting on that the state will take care of you. And of course you do not want to miss benefits or pension etc., since you have been paying so much tax in many ways. But I digress.

P. Heath. Thanks for your reply. I think all nations have the right to preserve their ethnic identity, whether they be Japanese, Nigerians, Italians or any other national group. What's more I think the world is a more genuinely diverse and interesting place when this right is respected. Even within countries, long established regional differences add enormously to the character of a country. For example, if you travel the short distance south from Northumberland to North Yorkshire, you notice that the indigenous inhabitants of the latter differ from their northern neighbours in speech, and even, to a certain extent, in looks. All this regional diversity tends to get lost in atomised multicultural societies.

I take your point about the fear of a rise in extreme nationalism in Japan, but in the West the powers that be have a brutally simple method for dealing with those who disapprove of mass immigration: social, cultural and political ostracism. Japan may not be quite the economic superpower it once was, but I've never heard anyone argue that its relative economic decline stems from its racial homogeneity. Nor do those who argue for the economic benefits of immigration spend much time dwelling on the case of China - where mono-culturalism doesn't appear to have inhibited massive economic growth.

And it is getting worse, more dangerous to us all and will continue to do so.

Still, it's only blood, flesh and bone that's being shattered and as long as it's not you or me, it's ok, then?

If it was happening in any other part of the world, which it is, and to any other people, which it is, it would become the concern of every self-righteous western leader and attempts to crush it instigated in an instant, which it is!
So please tell me - what's the difference?

I'm not sure what your point is. I think it was wrong to set up the state of Israel. I don't buy the claims Palestine was sparsely populated or that the Jews took it over simply by buying up land legitimately. We Brits helped a great wrong to be committed against the Muslim and Christian inhabitants of the Palestine.

Still, that was 70 years ago or more. Israel has existed now for decades and decades and has a right to exist. Israelis have a right to live in peace and security, and they are not those most responsible for preventing themselves and the Palestinians from living in peace and security.

It’s not just the member for Rochester and Strood who needs to brush up on EU facts, for in Britain our EU awareness, like the marshes of the Veneto, has ever been at a low ebb. But the upcoming negotiations will be ruthless and unrelenting, so we all need to grasp the basic principle that May (as in pole) and Davis will be wrangling with the Belgian “Veer-off-start”, whose name we can remember by thinking of the Olympics. Or was he Dutch? Never mind. We must keep our minds focused on three memory “aids”: free tr-ade, credit grade, and who-gets-paid. An important name to learn is Merkel, short for matriarchal. In France there is Hollande, but don’t let that confuse us. Mogherini sounds like “Muggery-knee”, Schultz like “Shoe-olds”, don't be "Two-sick" to forget Tusk, and so on. At this rate we’ll soon be ready to cross the channel and start those negotiations.

"The outrageous price of a two-mile bus ride" is the cost of public "service", even after a 50% operating subsidy, effectively tax-free fuel, road tax at a give away price, their own 24 hour bus lanes (where are the 24 hour buses?!), priority at traffic lights, privileged access to city centres, etc, etc.........

Ditto train fares.

And before "anyone" mentions European fares and subsidies, they don't try to run a local stopping bus service on heavy rail!!!

Colm J,
"Apparently only western nations benefit from the revitalising and enriching effects of huge numbers of foreigners in their midst ."

In return for Japans post war cooperation as a key strategic partner of the West, it is vital we do not obligate them to implement policies that would precipitate the rise of homogenous nationalist, anti-Western political parties, which would likely occur were their already densley packed Islands be impelled to accomodate multitudes of foreign migrants. It isn't difficult, under such circumstances, to imagine them tearing up treaties and prefering to anchor themselves to China, causing some destabilisation. This, I think, mostly explains why the question of refugees being settled in advanced non-European countries never seems to arise publicly.
Not that I'm presuming you hadn't already thought of any of that, but it's interesting to ponder why European and North American countries are expected to fulfill their United Nations obligations differently.

C. Morrison: You make a very salient point about how different moral standards are applied to different countries when it comes to immigration. Many supporters of Israel in the west support mass immigration to western Europe and North America, and condemn anti-immigration parties as racist or fascist. However most of these folk don't seem to object much to Mr Netanyahu's repeated statements that African migrants must be expelled from Israel on the grounds that they dilute the Jewish identity of the Israeli state. Likewise I don't notice too many pro-immigration western economists urging China, Japan or African countries to accept mass immigration in order to drive their economy forward and "enrich" their culture. Apparently only western nations benefit from the revitalising and enriching effects of huge numbers of foreigners in their midst .

If the Palestinian people were not a people under sentence of imminent death they would be able to take advantage of their homeland's historical importance and wait patiently for Christ to return to oust the trespassers on His Holy Land.

If the 'Israeli' people possessed an ounce of loving compassion, or even sense between them, they would realise that they will *never* ever possess the Holy Land by force and live in peace in it.

*All* of the Near East/Middle East problems and instability were/are initiated directly as a result of the enforced occupation of The Holy Land which *will* initiate Armageddon.
Then we will all have to stand up and account for our involvement in it - every single activist *and* their 'cheerleaders'!

Thornberry is getting it in the neck for declining to join the Blairite vendetta against Corbyn - it's that simple. Of course the Blairites can always rely on tribalist right-wingers to provide a backing chorus for their hate-fests. Indeed since the brilliantly executed takeover of tribal right-wing culture by previously communist Neo-conservatives, the tribal right has been little more than a vehicle for ensuring the complete triumph of the dominant hardline interventionist faction of cultural Marxist globalism.

But Israel has offered peace to the Palestinians many times. Over the last twenty years, the Israelis have offered the Palestinians almost all they claim. The Palestinian Authority has always balked at accepting a lasting peace, more worried about how making a deal with their hated enemies will be received in Gaza and the West Bank. It is true that the Netanyahu government has largely given up on the peace process, but this is because the Palestinians had shown themselves not serious (and also because the chaotic situation in the NearEast right now would make a secure and safe peace for Israel hard to achieve - what happens if ISIS affiliates start to take over an unoccupied West Bank?).

The problem with critics of Israel is they often don't seem concerned about basic details like this. Israel has shown it wants peace. Not peace at any cost, of course. It wants a dignified, secure peace. Israel is not always in the right. The settlement building, beyond those areas that will be needed to give Israel secure borders, is wrong, especially the punitive settlement buildings. But it is hard to look properly at the situation and see Israeli hawks as having the largest share of blame on the issue. It is the Palestinians, the PLO as well as Hamas (and the Palestinian people at large), who are most to blame.

At this moment peace will be hard, because of a lack of will on both sides and because of the situation in the Near East right now. But this was not Israel's fault.

If Mr Hitchens wishes to be a spend thrift with the currency of his own sympathies, I would have thought there exist more worthy recipients of whatever value they yield in terms of the written words and thoughts he uses to represent them.

People like Emily Thornberry are the epitome of all that will make Western nations rot and become the dust of history.

When, what is at present a rare event takes place, the public spotlight unfavourably focuses upon such a willfully destructive fool, a supposed opponent and self-defined defender of reason rushes forward on his own blog to pat her cheek and veil her perceived ignorance - what does he imagine he is demonstrating or will achieve ?

Fair play ? People putting it all into proper perspective, possibly questioning their own and each other's hypocrisy ?

No. It just contributes to the dire and long standing situation in which people like Emily Thornberry believe they have free licence to feed into the minds of their fellow citizens divisive, dishonest dogma whilst being ever immune to the voices of all who disagree.

Ultimately it provides a grave disservice to people like Emily Thornberry and those like her. They will simply never stop being fools, they will never stop deceiving people and will continue to damage the lives of all those around them. That will implode on all.

How come it isn't also "anti-semitic" to disagree with Jewish people who disapprove of recent conduct of the Israeli state?
Who and what ideological (or religious?) line would it be necessary to unquestioningly endorse, in order to avoid accusations of "anti-semitism"?
Is everyone supposed to regard Neturei Karta as being "anti-semitic"?
What does Peter Hitchens think of fervent supporters in the UK of what its own leaders call a "Jewish State", while (unlike him) at the same time demanding that there must be unrestricted and non-selective immigration where Britain is concerned?

I think perhaps Peter Hitchens is missing the point. Had she just not known/forgotten his name nobody would have cared. But she tried to make it a feminist issue to distract people from her ignorance and attack the interviewer for his supposed "sexism". I would have thought you of all people would have seen through this bluster to the real issue.

I think it's the business of any shadow foreign secretary to know the name of their would-be French counterpart. At least France and Germany - Guatemala would have been below the belt - but not France or Germany.

And I think Mr Hitchens needn't feel any tinge of guilt for making her look daft on live national television: if she's not serious about politics, for all our sakes, it's best she's caught out now to avert the damage she might cause if elected to government.

PH says.***I've never been able to find another explanation for their special concentration on the undoubted faults of Israel, and their lack of interest in the parallel faults of other countries.***

At the risk of joining Paul P and others I will say that this statement of yours, Mr Hitchens, is what I would expect from one of those brainless bigoted idiots who accuse others of exactly the same and who have selectively blinded themselves from reality in the wilderness of their very own 'politically correct' perspective of world events.

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